Natchez Burning (Penn Cage)

by Greg Iles

  “Did Mrs. Turner tell you that?”

  “No. But I think she was just being modest. The rumor was pretty widely believed back in sixty-eight.”

  “You’re talking about hearsay, Mr. Sexton. Even if such a rape occurred in 1968, the statute of limitations would have run out on that crime in 1975. No one could be prosecuted for it today.”

  “There’s no statute of limitations on murder,” Henry said doggedly.

  Johnson sighed. “I reviewed those case files, what little there was. Nobody ever found Jimmy Revels’s body. Luther Davis’s, either. You spend too much time living in the past, Henry.”

  The reporter felt his shoulders sag. “A lot of people say that.”

  “You can’t even see the obvious. If those Double Eagles were still active, they’d have killed you, not some nurse already circling the drain.” The DA shook his head like a man weary of dealing with a fool. “You’re free to go. I need to make some phone calls.”

  Henry packed his computer into his briefcase and left the office.

  CHAPTER 9

  AFTER ROSE CLEARED my calendar of all noncritical appointments, I began researching legal precedents in cases similar to the circumstances Shad had described regarding Viola Turner’s death. One call to a law school friend in New Orleans confirmed what Shad had told me earlier: Anna Pou, a highly respected EENT physician, might well be charged with murder for organizing the euthanization of eleven patients who couldn’t be evacuated during the worst hours of the Katrina flood. While the circumstances of that case and my father’s are clearly different, what chilled my blood was my friend’s assertion that the prosecution was politically motivated.

  Enter Shad Johnson.

  The fact that Dad has refused to give me any information about last night’s events is disturbing, yet it makes sense if he played some part in a physician-assisted suicide. In most similar situations, when someone makes a stink about the circumstances of death, common sense eventually prevails and no charges are filed. Based on the percentages, I should be able to assume that Viola’s son will soon realize that his mother’s wishes should trump all else. And yet . . . the longer I sit at my desk, the more intuition whispers that something out of the ordinary is happening. On impulse, I call the Illinois State Bar Association and inquire about Lincoln Turner. The woman I speak to informs me that four months ago, Turner’s law license was suspended pending a disbarment proceeding. She won’t elaborate on the phone, but a Nexis online search quickly tells me that he’s been accused of embezzling funds from a client escrow account. This is the sterling character accusing my father of murder.

  So why won’t Dad defend himself? He’s almost never kept secrets from me, not even in dire circumstances, yet this time something is forcing him out of character. And he’s not the only one. Shad Johnson and I share too much history for me to buy into his stated desire to be helpful to my family.

  Sure enough, when Shad calls back, I detect a suppressed excitement not present during our first two conversations. It’s that excitement that drives me out of my office and onto State Street, making for the DA’s office at a fast walk.

  The first time someone calls out to me, it barely registers. But when the speaker raises his voice and calls my first name, I turn to see Henry Sexton of the Concordia Beacon hailing me from the window of his Explorer. My first instinct is to wave to the reporter and walk on, but the urgency in his voice persuades me to go over to his window. When he tells me he has information concerning my father and Viola Turner, my heart does a double thump before recovering its normal beat. As I climb into the passenger seat, I realize that Henry is truly upset. In fact, he looks like he’s been crying.

  “Are you okay?” I ask. “What’s happened?”

  “I only have a few minutes,” he says anxiously. “But there’s something you need to see.”

  “What’s going on, Henry?”

  In a breathless voice, the reporter tells me a disjointed story that starts my pulse speeding, but it’s clear that Henry wants to help me, or at least my father. The one fact I’ve gleaned is that I need to see whatever’s on his computer before I speak to Shad Johnson.

  “I’d better pull around the corner before I play the file for you,” Henry says. “Shad could look out his window and see us sitting here.”

  “Do it.”

  The reporter slides his Mac onto my lap, looks furtively up at the sheriff’s office, then drives up State Street and turns on Commerce.

  I’ve always considered Henry Sexton to be a modern-day Don Quixote, and for that reason I trust him. I’ve been accused of having the same complex, but I’m nowhere near Henry’s league. The articles he writes about unsolved civil rights murders occasionally attract the odd death threat or flying bottle by way of criticism. The man himself is tall and lanky, with the perpetually sad eyes of a faithful hound. With his wire-rimmed glasses and a goatee, he looks like a cross between a college professor and a biologist you’d expect to find checking the acidity of catfish ponds.

  “How about here?” Henry asks, pulling up before the old Jewish temple on Commerce Street. My town house is just around the corner, on Washington, but Shad is expecting me in his office at any moment.

  “This is fine, Henry. Let’s see it.”

  He touches his Mac’s trackpad, and a three-by-five video window appears on the screen. A hospital bed stands in the corner of what appears to be a dim room in a private residence. First I hear a wail that sets my teeth on edge. Then I make out a skeletal figure thrashing in the covers as though trying to free itself from a knotted sheet. A gasping sound is clearly audible, punctuated by a repeated word that sounds like “Help.” The figure half falls off the bed, then reaches for something on the floor. At first I’m not sure what—then I see an empty phone cradle on the bedside table. Suddenly the scene makes sense. The desperate patient has knocked the phone onto the floor and hasn’t enough mobility to reach it.

  “Help!” comes the strangled cry again. “Cora . . . help me.” A few wisps of white hair cling to the patient’s skull. In a moment of horror I realize that this emaciated figure must be what remained of the beautiful nurse I remember from my childhood. Viola’s right hand opens and closes like a claw, but she cannot twist herself out of the bed. “Lord, he’s killing me!” she cries. “Tom . . . Tom! Why? Where are you?”

  My father’s name prickles every hair on my body. Henry’s barely breathing beside me. Somehow the old woman struggles back into a supine position in the bed, one hand pulling at her bare throat as though trying to rip away some invisible ligature. Sweat glistens on her face and forehead, and her breath comes far too fast. She’s going to hyperventilate, if she doesn’t stroke out first. Viola seems to have no idea that the camera is recording anything. But then again, maybe she does.

  “Cora!” she screeches, but before she can continue, her gasping stops and her eyes bulge in their sockets. “Hail Mary . . . full of grace,” she coughs in a strangled voice. “Hail Mary full of—”

  In mid-prayer Viola Turner’s mouth locks open, and she sits motionless for so long that I think she must be dead. Then in a final spasm she lurches to her left, throwing herself far enough that her upper torso falls out of the bed. She comes to rest with her lower body still tangled in the bedclothes, her right hand touching the floor near the telephone. I hear no more sounds of respiration. Not even a death rattle.

  “She’s dead,” I say softly.

  “I think so,” Henry agrees.

  “Who else has seen this?”

  “Me and the DA. Maybe the sheriff by now.”

  “Jesus, Henry.”

  “I know.”

  Sexton’s video isn’t the most horrifying visual evidence I’ve ever seen—not by a long shot. During my years as an assistant DA in Houston, I heard and saw tapes made by narcissistic rapists, torture-killers, and other assorted freaks. But this video would go a long way toward convincing a jury that Viola Turner didn’t die by her own choice. Worse, many people m
ight reasonably interpret her last words as a direct accusation against my father. I think the recording is equivocal on that point, but you never know how a jury will read something. If my father were vigorously defending himself on the stand (and had a good explanation for what the recording shows), a jury might believe him. But if he sat silently at the defense table, hiding behind the Fifth Amendment, they might well convict him.

  “Is there anything but this on the rest of the recording?”

  “Just twenty-eight minutes of her lying there.”

  “You watched it all?”

  “I fast-forwarded through it, but I’m pretty sure.”

  My right hand is gripping the door handle so hard that my forearm cramps, but I can’t pull myself away from the computer screen. For the first time I notice the appointments in Viola’s sickroom. On the bedside table stands a white statuette of the Virgin Mary, and hanging on the wall behind the hospital bed are three framed photos: Abraham Lincoln; Martin Luther King Jr.; John and Robert Kennedy standing on the White House Colonnade, looking pensive. The bedside lamp is a faux gas lantern, and it stands on a lace doily—an impractical item to use near a sickbed. I also see a clock-radio, which clearly reads 5:38 A.M.

  “Did that look like a morphine overdose to you?” Henry asks.

  “No. Is that what Shad thought it was?”

  “I think he expected to see a morphine overdose until he saw this.” Henry puts his hand on my arm. “Did I break the law by making a copy of this? Or by showing it to you?”

  “That’s probably open to interpretation. But you don’t have to worry about it. I won’t tell a soul I’ve seen it.”

  “I trust you. I just don’t trust Shad Johnson.”

  “You’re not alone in that.” I take a deep breath, then rub my eyes until I see stars. “I don’t mean to keep you, but you said Shad mentioned my father to you?”

  “When I first got to his office, he said he thought he had an assisted suicide situation on his hands. He said Viola and your father had some kind of pact about it. But after he saw this, I got a very different feeling.”

  “What did he say afterward?”

  “Just that the drive was evidence and he had to keep it. But everything had changed somehow. It was more his demeanor than anything else. I had the feeling he was gloating inside. You know?”

  “I do.” Given the past enmity between Shad and me, this would normally be no surprise, but considering the leverage I have over him—

  “This looks bad for your father, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes. Do you intend to report this in the Beacon?”

  “Not until I have a much better idea of what’s going on.”

  I look at Henry from the corner of my eye. “A lot of reporters would.”

  He shakes his head firmly. “Your father took care of my daddy right up to the day he died. Some days, Dr. Cage listened to Mama cry for an hour in his office. Not many doctors would do that. None, these days. I owed you this, Penn. Or him, I reckon.”

  I lay my hand on his forearm and squeeze it. “Thank you, buddy.”

  “What does Doc say about all this? Off the record.”

  “He told me to mind my own business.”

  “Huh.” Henry pooches out his lower lip. “Well . . . I’m sure Doc knows what he’s doing.”

  “Don’t count on it. When it comes to the law, he’s about as naïve as a seventh grader. He believes the law is about justice.”

  Henry shakes his head slowly. “It ought to be, but it ain’t. I’ve sure learned that these past few years.” He looks over at the door of the public library, where a heavy woman with three small children tries to herd them up the steps. “I hate to say this, Penn, but I need to go. Do you want me to drop you back where we were?”

  “You don’t need Shad to see you doing that. I’ll run from here.”

  Henry takes the computer from my lap and sets it on the backseat. “I appreciate it. Good luck to you.”

  As I jog back toward the courthouse, Henry puts the Explorer in gear and roars past me, making for the river.

  SHADRACH JOHNSON NORMALLY SITS behind his antebellum-period desk with the condescension of an Arab potentate. Today, however, his customary arrogance is tempered by a watchfulness I’ve rarely seen in him. Shad’s wary demeanor can only be explained by his awareness that I have the power to destroy his political career, and I see no reason to let him forget that during this conversation.

  “Before we begin,” he says, “I want us to be clear about something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We both know two months ago, you had a certain photograph in your possession. A photograph with me in it.”

  “Mm-hm,” I murmur in a neutral tone, my gaze playing over Shad’s jacket, which looks like a Zegna. The DA has always been a clotheshorse. He dresses as precisely as he grooms himself, which is rare among our lawyers and city officials these days. His keeps his hair cut close to his skull and his nails manicured, another unusual touch. The county coroner—an African-American woman with keen observational skills—once quietly suggested to me that Shad is gay, but I’ve never heard this confirmed. And since Natchez has long been a haven for gays in Mississippi, it seems odd that Shad would remain in the closet.

  The photograph that so worries him has nothing to do with sexuality—not so far as I know, anyway. Rather, it shows the district attorney in the presence of a professional football player and a pit bull dog. The dog in question is hanging by its neck from a tree limb, and the football player has a cattle prod in his hand. Both men look fascinated, even excited, by the brutality in which they are taking part.

  “You told me you gave me the original JPEG file,” Shad goes on, as though each word causes him discomfort. “On that SD card.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Was that . . .?”

  “The only copy?” I finish helpfully.

  “Yes.”

  I shrug.

  His face darkens. “Now, see? Goddamn it, this is just what I expected. A veiled threat.”

  “Shad, you ought to know me by now. If I make a threat, there won’t be any veil. Why don’t you just tell me why you summoned me? I thought maybe you were going to introduce me to Lincoln Turner.”

  The DA barks a laugh. “You don’t want that, believe me. That guy’s angry enough to punch you out. Your father, for sure.”

  “If the man’s so upset, why did he only get to town a half hour after his mother died?”

  “Always the lawyer,” Shad says drily. “I don’t know much about Lincoln Turner yet, and I don’t much care to. Right now I just want to make sure things are clear between you and me. Because I’m going to have to move forward in this matter, Penn. I’ve got no choice.”

  I expected this, but not quite so soon. “What exactly do you mean by ‘move forward’?”

  Shad steeples his fingers and leans back in his chair. “When we spoke this morning, I thought we were dealing with a case of assisted suicide. Maybe just plain suicide, okay? I just wanted it to go away. And I believed there was some chance that it would.”

  “But now?”

  “This thing isn’t going away, Penn. No way.”

  “What’s changed?”

  “We’re looking at murder now.” The DA’s voice is like a wire drawn taut. “First-degree murder.”

  I have to struggle to hold my face immobile. Even with the video recording, I don’t see how he gets to first-degree murder. “What are you talking about?”

  “Since we spoke this morning, new evidence has surfaced.”

  “What kind of evidence are we talking about?”

  “You know anybody else sitting in this chair would refuse to answer that question.”

  “No other DA’s future would be hanging by a thread that I hold.”

  Shad’s eyes blaze with frustrated anger. “I can’t give you the state’s case, damn it! Nobody knows that better than you. And based on the evidence I’ve seen so far, anybody sitting in thi
s chair would proceed against your father. They’d be negligent not to.”

  “What’s your evidence, Shad?” I ask patiently. “I need to know what my father’s facing.”

  He angrily expels a rush of air. “The sheriff’s department took your father’s fingerprints off two empty ampoules of morphine and a large syringe found at the scene.”

  I slowly digest this. Viola didn’t appear to have died from a morphine overdose on Henry’s recording. “They traced his fingerprints in less than a day?”

  “Four years ago, your father registered for a concealed-carry permit. The Highway Patrol fingerprints all applicants for that. When the sheriff’s department fed the prints from the syringe into AFIS, Dr. Cage’s name popped right out.”

  “All that proves is that my father held that syringe at some point prior to it being collected at the scene. It doesn’t even put him in the house.”

  “Viola’s sister put him in the house. Cora Revels.”

  “She says she left Dad alone with Viola?”

  “That’s right. She went to a neighbor’s house and fell asleep on the couch.”

  My mind flies back to Henry’s video. “Are you certain that Viola died of a morphine overdose?”

  Shad gives a small shrug. “You know we can’t be sure of that until the toxicology comes back. That could take weeks.”

  “Ask the state crime lab to rush it. They’ll do that for you on a murder case.”

  “Are you telling me how to run this case?”

  “I’m not convinced this is a case. I think you’re jumping the gun.”

  Shad looks genuinely upset. “Penn, you’ve sat where I’m sitting. No child in the world wants to believe his parent committed a terrible crime. But I have a duty here. If I shirk it, I’ll be buried by public opinion as surely as if you published that photo in the Examiner.”

  “I honestly don’t see how you get to first-degree murder. But I didn’t go to Harvard like you. Help me out here.”

  Shad clearly wants me out of his office, but so long as he thinks I have the photo, he’ll handle me with kid gloves. “Lincoln Turner believes his mother was murdered. The physical evidence supports his assertion. And whether your fiancée chooses to print it in the paper or not, his assertion is likely to become a public accusation very soon. If the past is any guide, the rumor will be all over town long before tomorrow’s paper hits the streets.”